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Month: April 2014

First comic you remember reading: Marvel Team-up #47! This is the issue that started it all. I obviously didn’t know at the time I’d grow up and get to work on two different Spider-Man cartoons so I’d say this was a good use of twenty-five cents!

Creators who have inspired you: There are the two different kinds of inspiration. The first is the work itself that I admired while growing up (and I’ll keep this to comics guys but pal Nilo Rodis-Jamero and a whole lot more would be on this). The second would be the creators who I’ve been lucky enough to get to know and find inspiration in their work ethic and the way they live their lives. Some of these have overlapped. The work I devoured in my youth was by Jack Kirby, Bernie Wrightson, Alex Toth, John Byrne, and George Perez to name a few. As an inspiration on how to be a good person AND insanely talented I’d say Bernie Wrightson and Mike & Laura Allred continue to inspire. Both were extremely gracious to me early in my career and I have much love and respect for them.

Dream project: I’ve worked on Spider-Man, Star Wars, Doc Savage, Superman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, He-Man, X-Men and G.I. Joe! I’ve been pretty lucky to have been paid to work on a ton of my childhood favorites. So my only other childhood dream not checked off is being an astronaut but my Actionopolis line of books is my dream project! Between Actionopolis and all the fun stuff we have rolling at Lion Forge Comics I’m living the dream!

Current Project: Miami Vice, Airwolf,Knight Rider, Rampage Jackson, Chavo Guerrero, Accel, and tons of other stuff rolling right now with Lion Forge Comics!

Favorite Art tools: Pencil and a sketchbook!

Anything special for ACME/Free Comic Book Day: Really looking forward to finding the next round of Lion Forge talent as well as letting everyone know about all the fun stuff we have coming up from Lion Forge.

Where can people find you and your work online: ShannonDenton.com is the best place along with @ShannonDenton and @LionForge on Twitter! You’re also welcome to say howdy in person any time!

First comic you remember reading: The first comic I recall was Iron Man… not sure what issue, but it was during his alcoholic period. I was like whoa! Iron man is a drunk? awesome!! ….I was a strange little kid.

Creators who have inspired you: So many over the years, and constantly getting new ones that inspire me and keep me reaching to expand artistically. You have to start with Jack Kirby, then over the years John Byrne, Art Adams, the 90’s image guys, Joe Mad, Humberto Ramos, Chris Bachalo, and most recently Fiona Staples, Rafael Albuquerque, Sean Gordon Murphy, Ryan Ottley

Dream Project:It was always my dream to work on an X-men related project…my childhood fave.but honestly my own creator owned work such as Jack Rabbit is extremely fulfilling and allows me the freedom to experiment and grow artistically. …one day X-men…one day…

Dream project: Any creator owned project as long as I believed in it. I would also love to work on Sandman, Judge Dredd, the Shadow, and continuing Strange Streets all the way into what I see planned for it.

Current Project: Right now, I’m finishing up the first issue to “Peony” written by Kara Uranga and continuing that until the story concludes, and then in the beginning stages of a very ambitious book, “Deprecated” written by Gren Radcliff.

First comic you remember reading: I remember reading a mix of comics as a kid including Spider-Man, World’s Finest, Green Arrow & Black Canary, Fantastic Four, Micronauts, and more. The first series I remember actively collecting was Batman and the Outsiders by Mike W. Barr and Jim Aparo with colors by Adrienne Roy. I loved the concept that Batman was such a bad-ass that he essentially tells the Justice League to go #$@! themselves and starts his own superhero team. Batman plays by his own rules and I was really drawn to that as well as watching each of the Outsiders become heroes in their own right.

Creators who have inspired you: As a boy the comics where I noticed the color were always colored by Adrienne Roy. Her skills with warm and cool colors as well as her creativity were unrivaled in her own time. I’m fortunate enough to have chatted with her at length and purchased some original color guides from her several years ago at Comic-Con. We spoke about me interviewing her and sharing her history and experiences from yesterday with today’s colorists but unfortunately she passed away. Her work has influenced an entire generation and she will be missed.

I distinctly remember seeing an issue of Akira when I was younger and experiencing digital color for the first time. Flipping to the credits page and discovering Steve Oliff changed my life forever. I may not have realized it at the time but this is probably the moment when I started my journey toward coloring comics. I followed everything Steve and his studio, Olyoptics, colored and continue to be impressed by his work. I was fortunate enough to interview him for my second art-instruction book, Master Digital Color.

Dream Project: For me the dream project is never about working with any certain publisher or on any specific comic title. My dream projects are always about working with creators who I respect and admire. I’ve been fortunate enough over the years to meet and collaborate with many of my personal comic heroes like Dan Jurgens, Terry Moore, George Perez and many more. I don’t know what the future will hold but I hope to work with more creators who inspire me and who work hard to create great comic books. Regardless of the character or company those are always the dream projects and the ones that challenge me to grow as a creator.

Current Project: Right now in the studio we are coloring DC’s new weekly series Future’s End. It’s always a fun challenge to work on a project where 52 issues must come out over 52 weeks. The writers and artists involved are all incredible and seeing their ideas rapidly evolve as each issue is completed makes the hard work worthwhile. Future’s End shows us versions of our favorite DC characters dealing with events 5 years in the future. Some characters will be familiar while others have changed radically. Watching the events unfold and wondering if the heroes can save the word and themselves is very thrilling and I know fans are going to want to read every issue.

Favorite Art Tools: I use Adobe Photoshop for most of the comic book coloring I do and use a Wacom tablet connected to my Mac to paint colors directly into Photoshop. For painted book covers and pop-art posters I typically create the drawing and painting on the iPad using the Mobiüs Pro stylus. Once the illustration is completed I will export it from my iPad back to my Mac where I add the finishing touches and typography for the finished lithographs.

Anything special for ACME/Free Comic Book Day: Hi-Fi colored DC’s Future’s End #0 for Free Comic Book Day as well the SpongeBob Comic Snob story in United Plankton’s SpongeBob Freestyle Funnies 2014. I will also have a couple of new prints available including a 50th Anniversary GI Joe print and an art nouveau Harley Quinn print that will debut at ACME for FCBD.

Where can people find you and your work online: Fans can see samples of comics colored by Hi-Fi and learn about coloring comic books at hifidesign.com as well as on Facebook at facebook.com/HiFiColourDesign and twitter at @hificolor My personal pop-art propaganda posters can be found at oktopolis.com

Lion Forge Comics senior editor, veteran comic artist, writer and storyboard artist, Shannon Eric Denton will be at ACME doing portfolio reviews for up and coming artists! This is a fantastic opportunity to get your work critiqued and seen by an award winning editor! If you have ever wanted a job in comics or animation, this is an opportunity you can’t miss! Learn more about Shannon on our guest page, or visit his website!

First comic you remember reading: I think that would have to be Peanuts. I used to read all of the daily comics in my local newspaper (the Arizona Daily Star, at the time). Soon after that I moved on to Betty & Veronica, and from there it was all over – I was a legit Comic Book Reader.

Creators who have inspired you: There’s so many. Like really, just SO many… I find new artists to admire literally everyday. I draw a lot of influence from non-comic book artists; I think that’s really important for any creative-type. You can’t limit yourself to one industry or genre, or your work can get really stale. Lately I’m really in love with Tiffany Ford’s work, Matt Fraction, Cindy Suen, Mindy Kaling, Natasha Allegri, Chip Zdarsky, Meredith Gran, the Little Friends of Printmaking,…..

Dream Project: Being a cover artist for kid’s comics. I’ve done a few (including Adventure Time), but I’d love to make that a more regular thing.

Current Project: I’m working on a few projects as a colorist right now. I’ve got two all-ages comics in the works with Eric M. Esquivel (writer of LOKI: Ragnarok and Roll). One is being illustrated by our amazing friend Ian McGinty (artist of Adventure Time: Candy Capers), and the second is being drawn by Chris Haley, who makes Let’s Be Friends Again.I’m really amped about both projects, but for now they’re both unannounced so that’s about all I can say about them. :)Outside of comics, I’ve also been making lots of gifs with Giphy lately and I’ll be announcing more about that soon.

Favorite Art Tools: There’s a Sharpie brush pen they stopped making that I LOVE. I have to buy them in bulk when I find them, but they’re great for the display lettering that I do.Other than that, I bought my first Cintiq last year and I find that it makes coloring comics so much faster for me! I’m really digging it.I’ve been working digitally a lot lately for my commercial work, but I’m always a handmade-stuff kind of girl. I like pencils and paper, and I’ll always be a sucker for a good screen print.

Anything special for ACME/Free Comic Book Day: I will have something special in regards to Adventure Time: Candy Capers (the trade comes out 5/14), but I don’t want to give anything away just yet.